


Home Is Where the Heart Is

by venusinthenight



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Male Character, Ficlet, Gen, Guns, Injury Recovery, Male Character of Color, Missing Scene, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 07:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venusinthenight/pseuds/venusinthenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marcus is too determined to end up behind a desk, or work in a division he doesn’t want to be a part of. Missing scene fic set between 2x11 and 2x12. (SPOILERS for the end of 2x11 and the beginning of 2x12.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Where the Heart Is

It had not been more than fifteen minutes after he had talked to the Deputy Commissioner that Marcus had made his mind up. Actually, Marcus had made his mind up while they were still talking behind closed doors, but he wanted to humor the Deputy Commissioner.

Now, after returning to his desk, Marcus dials a number. Once he’s through, he introduces himself and says, “Look, I appreciate your offer, I really do, but I’m going to respectfully turn it down. It’s not really what I want to do. Thanks.”

And it isn’t what Marcus wants to do. Marcus knows that the NYPD’s Demographics unit is most notorious for its racial profiling and additional police brutality, the very things he joined the force to stand against. Their brand of justice has no connection to his own, which involves doing things the right way as best as possible, cleanly, without punishing people because they’re the wrong skin color or religion.

In fact, inside him he feels adrenaline suddenly shooting through his body. Marcus is too determined to end up behind a desk for the rest of his police career. He is also too determined to stay away from a division he doesn’t want any part of. He loves his work. He misses being at crime scenes, going through evidence, tipping off Holmes and Watson to new leads or to let them know that something they had deduced had checked out, questioning suspects, reading their body language and voice.

The Homicide Division is his home, and he is not about to leave.

* * *

Marcus works longer on his at-home physiotherapy exercises, starts pretending to shoot a gun again, even does visualizations where he is at a crime scene or is about to arrest a murderer, gun poised at the ready, his right arm and hand like lead, steady as can be. He repeats this until he decides he’s ready to try shooting an actual gun at the police station’s shooting range.

When Marcus first points his gun at his target, his right hand quakes a little bit, but his grip is much better than it was in the few days after his surgery. After a breath, he pulls the trigger. It isn’t in the middle of the target, but it is on target, and for Marcus, that is important. He continues to fire the gun until his ammunition runs out, his confidence and determination building each time. As he reloads, as the target paper is reset, and he continues to practice, the more he realizes he may actually be okay. After he finishes, he smiles, proud of himself and the in-roads he has made in his recovery.

* * *

It is only a few days before Christmas that Marcus receives the e-mail he had been hoping to receive: his Captain, Gregson, telling him to come in for a gun shooting test after the holidays and then to “get back to working the crime scenes when you pass. I miss having my best guy out there.”

Not _if_ , Marcus thinks. _When you pass._ “I miss working with you too, Captain,” he says out loud, to the void filling his apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> Since I have no idea of a timeline in regards to this, I'm very much winging it. (But then, continuity and a sense of time isn't all that prevalent in Elementary anyway. ;))
> 
> That said, as of 2x13, this has become a canon-divergent AU fic, needless to say.


End file.
